


burnout

by crookedsaint



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Derealization & Memory Issues, Grief, Incineration-Related Burn Wounds, Incineration-Related Ensuing Body Horror, Light Carcinization-Related Body Horror, M/M, Maincord-Inappropriate Swearing, Panic Attacks, mentions of stu trololol but definitely not enough to warrant a tag, see also: eggs! what's up with those?, two bros monologuing in a graveyard five feet apart cause they're deeply broken people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 07:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29522637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedsaint/pseuds/crookedsaint
Summary: Smoke fills Declan Suzanne's head as, somewhere in Maryland-by-way-of-Illinois, he drives to a graveyard.Smoke fills Tillman Henderson's lungs as he rises from the dead.
Relationships: Tillman Henderson/Declan Suzanne
Comments: 16
Kudos: 32
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	burnout

**Author's Note:**

> please mind the content warnings on this one! i've tried to tag everything, but if i'm missing something, please let me know. 
> 
> i am chasing this fic out of my house with a broom. enjoy it or don't i just need to be free of it. i recommend listening either to your obnoxious ska of choice or to julien baker's sprained ankle album, depending on how you personally feel about these two. i would provide context, but frankly, i have none!
> 
> declan uses he/they and tillman uses he/him. this was my first time writing a character with multiple sets of pronouns, so if you're confused, so am i! enjoy! or don't!

_The aspect of Smoke is associated with the color red, the ‘Burnout’ stage of a fire, and chemical reactions, the fourth of four components to every fire. Smoke is the aspect of choking, confusion, and isolation; however, Smoke is the ultimate warning, a call for help, and the acknowledgement of danger._

Declan slammed the door of the El Camino, key already in the ignition. The radio crashed over them, half-music and half-noise-and-Dispatch, same as it always was. Same as everything was, same gray concrete, same dim blue sky, same biting cold on their cheeks. They didn’t know where they were driving. Only that it was _away._

You can only take so many days, because everyone can only take so many days, and Declan Suzanne had had thirty-six days, and then a blurry offseason, and then another season, and that was it. That was enough for him. Enough small talk with fans and trash talk with enemies and gratingly friendly talk with Lou and confusing, awful talks with Joshua, and talk and talk and _talk_ —

He checked the speedometer. 

He took his foot off the gas. 

But that was it, wasn’t it? Everything was so slow, and something about _slow_ just made Declan crave _fast._ Every little push of the scales towards comforting, comfortable, _normal_ made them want to shove them in the other direction. They’d been comfortable before. It was suffocating.

Sometimes he still inhaled—sharp, quiet, in the dark of his own room—and smelled smoke.

The radio fuzzed in and out as they got onto the Interstate. Whatever interstate, at this point. He needed to get out of Chicago, and so what if Chicago wouldn’t get the fuck out of him? He could—

He could—

_“—they say the sadness does that to you!”_

Declan slammed his fist on the dial.

The radio fell silent.

He took the next exit.

-

“Funny to see you here. Haha, uh.”

Beat.

“I should have brought flowers.”

Beat.

“At least someone’s leaving you flowers, huh? Here, let me… there. Looks nicer that way. Not that you’d care about that kind of thing, but.”

Beat.

“You know what’s funny is, uh. I don’t know how long it’s been. I started out counting, but then the season ended, and one day I just…”  
Beat.

“Started taking more shifts. As a firefighter, I mean. I don’t know if you—for all I know, you thought it was just a bit. Like, that the uniforms and axes and stuff—no, you’re not stupid. But just. In case you didn’t know, I am an actual firefighter. I started out as one, actually, before blaseball. Maybe that’s why I’m so shit at batting, ell oh ell. Actually, you know, Butt tried taking me off the schedule? But that lasted about a week before Rivers—I mean, she knows me. As much as I hate it, she really, really knows me. And she saw I was desperate for, like, anything? To make it—”

Beat.

“To make it worth it.”

Beat.

“So I started taking more shifts. And at first there was something satisfying—like I was doing something about it. But I stopped, uh, sleeping? Or sleeping _well_ , I guess. So they made me take a week off, and I moved back into the place in Schaumburg with Mom and Mags and the kids and everyone for the offseason, and I guess that was when I stopped counting. Days stopped meaning jack shit. _Christ,_ Tilly—you know, I’d never say this to you, but lo— _you dying_ really got me thinking. How fuckin’ ironic, right? I just didn’t have anything to keep me out of my head, anymore. And I’ve been thinking—”

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

“We fucked up. We really, really fucked up with you, Tilly. With everyone—not like you’re the only one who got—listen, okay. I’ve been a firefighter for more years than I can count—years haven’t meant jack shit for a _while_ —and this isn’t how it _works_. There’s no smoke. No warning. Just light. Heat. Gone. It’s not supposed…”

Beat.

“You know, I still smell the smoke sometimes. I was—at a bar, I think? Right outside, maybe. And, fuck, Tilly, there was this guy there, and right as—right as it happened, he lights his cigarette. People cheer. _They cheered,_ and I wish I didn’t have to tell you that, but they did. And he takes a drag, and he doesn’t even make eye contact with me. He just—”

Beat. Beat. Beat.

_Beat._

“I don’t know, I can barely remember. All I remember is feeling like I couldn’t breathe.”

Tillman’s heart was racing, now, beat blurring into beat, moment blurring into moment. He stepped forward, reaching out, but he was still a few feet short when Declan’s knees buckled and slammed into the dirt. He closed the distance, laying a hand on Declan’s shoulder—

They’d pulled out a lighter, flicking it on and off again. Grounding themself. Staring into it like it was the sun. Tillman bit back all the quips he’d saved up, all the things he’d swore he’d say to Declan after—after—something. He couldn’t remember. Instead, he knelt down beside them, laying a hand on their shoulder.

“Suzanne, hey. Hey, careful.” Finger by finger, he pried the old red Zippo out of Declan’s hand. It was too familiar a gesture for something he couldn’t recall ever doing. “At least tie your hair up if you’re gonna play with fire. Can’t have us both going up in—”

“Tillman?” Declan whipped around to face him, eyes wide. “Is that you?”

“Catch your breath and check your vision, Suzanne. ‘Course it’s me.”

_“Tillman?”_

He hated this. He hated Declan looking through him like he was a ghost. Shrinking away like touching Tillman would shatter him. “Seriously, catch your breath. You look like an old lady’s little purse dog, shaking like that.”

“Tough talk for a guy covered in—is that ash?”

A nervous laugh. “I haven’t wanted to think too hard about it, honestly? On the way here someone asked me if it was _me_ —like, you know, old me? All over me? And I didn’t want to—”

Tillman couldn’t pretend he hated it when Declan wrapped him in a suffocating hug. Even as their nails dug into his neck, as their shoulders shook, there was something terrible and comforting about the gesture. He hadn’t actually—

There was no one to—

“Wait, why are you wearing a Thieves jersey?”

Tillman sighed, a small amount of the tension in his chest releasing. “As charmed a life as I lead, apparently the Crabs didn’t want me back. Who can say why, right?”

“Back—” Declan pulls away, and some part of Tillman aches. “You’re—wait, like Jaylen?”

“What’d you think? Like fuckin’ Ghost Rider? Yeah, like Jaylen.” He casually presses his thumb into his wrist, checking despite himself. He still wasn’t quite sure how—didn’t quite understand the circumstances. Hadn’t asked. “Doin’ a lot better than she ever was, though. No evil pitching arm yet. RIV to her, but—”

“—You’re different,” Declan breathed. They blinked, and then their hands were all over him, ghosting over his skin. Tillman's breath hitched. “You _are_ different. Are those _burn wounds?_ Shit, Tilly, we need to get you—”

“To a hospital, supposedly. That’s what everyone told me. But I had—I mean, they _said_ I’d died, but for all I know, they were fucking with me, right?” His gut twists at the memory, but his face only twitches. It had felt like a practical joke. Like something he’d have pulled with Tosser—Bertie, he’d always called him Bertie, hadn’t he?—back in the day. Get your buddy drunk and tell them they died for a year and thirtysome days, yeah, that’ll do it. “You play a game, you see a flash of light, and there’s this sort of—there’s a whole—and you’re back, right? So I got Little Miss Airship or whoever to get me to Baltimore cause it’s not like someone tells you, Notably Alive Tillman Henderson, that you _died_ and you just believe them, right? So what if—”

“Shut up.” Declan’s face edged on desperate, their hands hovering over Tillman's shoulders. “Please. Let me help.”

It’s not like he needed—

He was basically doing Suzanne a _favor_ , dude looked like he was gonna cry or something—

Tillman reached a hand out to Declan, palm up, and helped them off the ground.

-

“What did you tell the Thieves, anyway? Since when do they ever let one of their own out of their sight?” 

Declan watched as a slew of expressions tumbled across Tillman’s face in sequence. He was, as usual, staring out the windshield, feet up on the dash. But that was all deceptively casual. He cleared his throat and visibly schooled his expression into something smug and devil-may-care—leaving Declan to wonder how many times they’d seen it and not known how fake it was. “I was supposed to tell them?”

“They’re your team.”

“Keep your eyes on the road.”

They sighed and turned back to the Interstate, letting their eyes glaze over again. “You’re telling me they’re still docked at the air base in Baltimore?”

“Probably halfway to Charleston.”

“At least text.”

“Since when do I ever text?”

“Point taken.” Declan switched the radio back on, filling the El Camino with some alt rock preset he’d forgotten to overwrite after Tillman had gone.

_Forgotten._ That was one word for it.

The rest of the trip blurred and warped as the Interstate worked its magic, bearing the two of them home to Chicago, just about seven minutes after when he’d texted Butt he’d get back. Always seven minutes, with the Interstate. Tillman had asked about it once, as if it was something Declan would know. As if Mx. Chicago handed them a Powerpoint about all the weird shit in the city the moment she Called them. They couldn’t help but wonder if he still gave a shit about _seven minutes,_ if it mattered more or less after a year gone.

“This shithole’s the same as ever.”

“Hey.”

“What? It’s true.” Tillman shrugged, keeping his arms crossed over his chest as he did so. “Nothing’s changed.”

Declan let out a breath through his teeth. “Fuckin’ wish _that_ were true.”

-

Declan’s apartment was not, in fact, the same as it ever was. The similarities ended when Tillman stumbled through the doorway and caught himself on the coathook, an echo of a hundred drunk nights and exhausted post-interview afternoons. The unsure footing was something a bit more sinister this time, sure, but his treacherous chest filled with warmth at the memory, faint as it was.

His first glance around the room wasn’t so soothing. Declan’s place had been messy before, sure, but. Something about it had changed. Anything that could be piled on top of something else had been. Paperwork, notebooks, old mail, empty pizza boxes, and open DVD containers were stacked indiscriminately everywhere from the table to the kitchen counter. Their couch was covered in cat hair now, for some reason. Worst of all might have been the bed, tucked around the corner, but visibly unmade. Tillman knew that Declan would never—

Well. Tillman knew some shit that wasn’t any of his business. No need for him to stick his nose where it didn’t belong.

Speak of the devil, Declan followed on his heels, his hand settling—out of habit, maybe—on Tillman’s waist, guiding him with a shamefully gentle touch towards the bathroom.

It was, to his relief, still spitshine-clean. So, Tillman mused, the EMT training hadn’t fully fallen out of their brain while he’d been gone. That might have been more useful than he’d initially assumed. With every step across the tile, the sound of shoes on tile faded into a foggy near-vertigo, his brain finally catching up to his body. Suddenly, Tillman found himself _aware_ of just how much pain he’d been in for the past few hours. There was an itch crawling over his skin, a terrible sensation of burning _again,_ of scars opening back into wounds, of—

“—okay? Just take a seat on the bathtub.” Declan lowered him down. When had he started leaning back into their touch? “Shit. So, you’re hyperventilating right now. If I’m the thing scaring you, you need to tell me. I can back off, but, uh.” Their voice faltered. “Your arm—”

“You’re not scaring me, Suzanne.” Something sure was, though. His lungs felt like they were shivering. And then, just as he blinked to try to refocus his eyes, the pain came back in full force.

Tillman could remember an instant, after being pulled all-too-quickly from the Trench, where he’d felt as though he was back in the very moment of his—whatever that had been. Could smell the burnt hair and cooking flesh and thick, choking smoke, could _taste_ the words on his tongue he hadn’t been able to take back. As soon as the ball was in his hand, though, the fire retreated, leaving him standing on the mound. Bottom of the first, Season 10, Day 104. Pain gone. Mind clear. Play ball.

Supposedly, he’d been Returned days prior. Only thing was, he’d spilled out of the eggshell still half-skeletal, slowly regrowing the muscle and tendon and skin that let him play— _unresponsive,_ in the words of the team doctor. No one could tell him exactly what that meant. Why his memory felt full of holes, why he didn’t know where he’d been for a year and however many days, where the rest of his team was, why he was in _Charleston_ of all places—

If it had been the Shoe Thieves’ pity that got him to his grave, it had been the numbness that kept him standing long enough not to fall right back in. 

That same numbness that was quickly leeching out of him. His skin felt like it was splitting open again—it wasn’t, he _knew_ it wasn’t. But even as he watched, the burn wounds that he’d refused to understand, to process, began to feel real. They looked unchanged, looked all the world like they were the same insignificant future cool scars he’d had back on the field. But they _burned._

Tillman did remember now, much as he didn’t want to. He had _burned._

-

Declan scrambled forward, catching Tillman’s head before he could knock himself out on the edge of the tub. His eyes were hazy, his hands unsteady where they pressed against Declan’s biceps. It was like he was bracing himself for something. _Something_ had changed in the few steps between the door and the first aid kit. Declan wanted to cuss himself out for not questioning the ash-coated burn wounds any further than he had. He knew better.

That was the kicker, wasn’t it? All their time in fire academy, all the sleepless nights spent getting their EMT certification, and none of it had prepared them for this. None of it had bothered to tap him on the fucking shoulder and remind him that blaseball could break all the rules, could do whatever it wanted to the people he—

Deep breath. Get the wounds clean, Suzanne. What would Laura think of this kind of self-indulgent bullshit? It was a crisis. Well past time to start acting like it.

They turned on the tap, running it until it was pleasantly cool (but not cold, didn’t want to shock his system, didn’t want to make it worse) and washing their hands under it before continuing. Their hand hovered over the soap as they set it down. Would it help? Or would it just make scrubbing off the caked-on layers of ash and god-knows-what more painful?

Declan made a decision. Unzipped the first aid kit, pulled out a soft cloth designed for this express purpose, and soaked it under the tap. He would have to work fast. Maybe it was just their eyes playing tricks on them, but it looked like the open, seeping parts of the wounds were already trying to scab over.

“I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.” The hands braced on his biceps twisted in his shirt as he started his work. Declan refused to make eye contact.

They tried and failed to not think about what would happen after this. What they should have done was take him to a surgeon—fuck his pride, these would need debriding and skin grafts. Removing the layer of grime had only revealed stomach-turning patches of necrotic tissue. Bad news. Declan had never seen a victim with wounds this severe make it more than a few seconds without passing out, much less come out of surgery able to walk without getting fully ship-of-Theseus’d by an experienced doctor.

It could have been welcome, then, when they saw blue-black blood starting to flow back into the fatty tissue barely hidden by the dead areas of skin. Would have been, if it hadn’t sent a wave of nausea over Declan. They kept themselves from retching at the display by refocusing on wiping away the ash before it could get trapped in the torn edges of the wounds. So that was what carcinization had meant, for Tillman. Blood like a horseshoe crab’s. Declan wondered idly whether it would clot as fast as the real thing.

He would have to pick up the pace. That was all he could think of, all he did think of, for the rest of the process. Half their mind was consumed entirely by the task at hand, wringing out the cloth, soaking it over and over again—switching, eventually, to a gauze pad as they got to areas slowly beginning to turn a faint greenish-blue as whatever blessed blood he had dragged the tissue, inch by inch, back from the dead. 

The other half was lingering somewhere over their left shoulder, drifting and untethered entirely from the business of their hands. Preoccupied instead with the stricken expression on Tillman’s face. With his labored breathing. Steady, sure. Slower now, too. But every breath looked like, _sounded_ like an ordeal. Like he didn’t remember how to do it automatically. Like it was new.

“I’m—sorry, I’m gonna need you to strip off the rest of your clothes. I need to make sure—” Declan bit back whatever the original ending of that sentence was going to be. “I need to make sure there’s no more residue. You’re healing, um. Faster than expected. I don’t want you getting an infection.”

Tillman just nodded, relaxing his grip on Declan’s shirt for the first time in who knows how long. “I think—” the words came out rough, the same tone of voice they’d heard a million times before from victims with lungfuls of smoke. “I don’t. I can’t, uh.”

Declan took a moment to weigh his options. “Can you raise your arms for me?”

Tillman obeyed, looking Declan in the eye as he did so. His gaze vacillated between vacant and intense. “Am I—?”

The end of the question wasn’t forthcoming, but Declan already had a practiced response. “You’re going to be okay. I don’t know what’s happening, or why, but you’re going to be okay.”

-

On Season 10, Day 99, Tillman Henderson emerged from an egg. He was not new. In fact, he was more corpse than player. But play must continue, and continue it did.

On Season 10, Day 104, Tillman Henderson pitched a game for the Charleston Shoe Thieves. This was new. The feeling of a ball in his hand, no, that was familiar, but everything was too quiet. Too dim. He saw everything through a faint haze, the whole situation feeling backwards. Alien. But play must continue, and continue it did.

On Season 10, Day 104, Tillman Henderson assumed everyone was against him. This was not new. The Thieves did what they could, but play must continue. In order to do that, he had to be stable. Responsive. Think of it like anaesthesia: he didn’t have to remember anything to heal. Didn’t even have to be awake. That was a problem for his teammates, or maybe a therapist. It certainly wasn’t a problem for the Commissioner.

On Season 10, Day 104, Tillman Henderson visited his own grave.

On Season 10, Day 104, Tillman Henderson remembered everything. Play ended as abruptly as it began. It was plunging his face into cold water. It was clawing his way out of the dirt. It was nothing like burning.

On Season 10, Day 104, Tillman Henderson awoke to soft hands brushing across his cheeks as they tugged his hair away from his face. 

Somewhere behind him, water was running. He sniffed—freshwater. Somewhere in him, something frowned. That wasn’t right. It would do, but it wouldn’t be enough. The salt would have cleansed the wounds, scrubbed away the creeping infection, fed the blood that ran through his veins—elsewhere, too, now, everywhere, permeating each and every—

Those same hands returned, pressing a damp cloth to his jaw. “There we go. Almost there. Don’t open your eyes yet, I don’t want them to sting.”

Slowly, gently, the layer of ash separating him from the world was wiped away. One hand stayed braced on the side of his head, holding his hair in place and giving him something to lean into when he hissed in pain. 

“That’s it.” The hand left the side of his head, leaving only cool air in its place. “Now, I’m not really sure what happened here, but this looks like it’ll clean itself up in a few days. I know you don’t like doctors, but, uh, I might ask someone I know to come take a look. If—I mean, if it bothers you, I won’t, but—”

Tillman opened his eyes. Declan was worrying the lapel of his jacket between his fingers, the mask of competence slipping further and further away with each passing second. 

“I know you’re not on the Crabs anymore, and I know that must sting, but. Well. I don’t know. I think this might be a carcinization thing, or a Commissioner thing, or maybe both? Probably both, really.”

He looked down at himself. He was covered in patches of bruise-blue skin, dancing and changing shape before his very eyes. The edges were receding, his skin rapidly healing over the places where—over the wounds he’d had before. He reached up to feel his ear—the one he’d been dimly aware of as half-gone, nearly forgotten. It was, to his mounting panic, reforming, the jagged tear knitting back together under his touch. 

He jerked his hand away. Some things were better left unseen.

“—need anything?”

Ash floated down into Tillman’s lap from where he’d disturbed however much of it still lingered in his hair. He stared at it as it settled on the leg of his briefs.

“Because I thought this was something I could help with, but if you need me to take you home—where is home, right now, anyway? Have you been back to your place in Baltimore yet?”

“Can you—” Tillman stopped himself. He didn’t want to risk his voice breaking. He swallowed before continuing, evening out his breathing into a more consistent tempo. “My hair’s still dirty.”

Declan glanced his way, finally breaking eye contact with some spot on the wall he’d been talking to. “Are you sure you want me to—if you wash it, you’ll be able to see what you’re, um. Well. Whatever comic book healing factor you’ve got, it doesn’t extend to the hair.” He brought a hand up to Tillman’s face, not quite touching. Tentative. “It’s gonna be pretty ugly.”

A sharp laugh escaped Tillman’s lips. “You really think I care about that right now?” He closed his fingers over Declan’s wrist. “I just want to feel normal again. As normal as I can.”

“Right.” Something clicked in their expression. They zipped up the first aid kit. Stuffed it in the cabinet under the sink. They folded up his uniform, setting them carefully on a patch of counter with no dark smudges. Probably weren’t thinking. There were already streaks of ash and mud all over the blue and yellow. They stepped to Tillman’s side, disappearing from view for a moment. The sound of the water changed ever so slightly.

“What’s your plan here, Suzanne?” He poured as much smarminess as he could muster into the phrase. “Cause I don’t feel like anything as fancy as _standing up_ is _anywhere_ in my future.”

“Don’t be stupid. Here, lean your head over the edge.” He offered Tillman hand, letting him boost himself onto a short stool he hadn’t noticed was there. His mind, still some distance away, supplied that Declan had probably been sitting on it before. He couldn’t bring himself to notice, much less care. Too much of him was busy trying to comprehend the crawling, curling sensation on every inch of his skin. Too much of him was busy processing the wash of memories swirling in his reborn brain, even as things slipped and slid out of his hands, back into the hazy near-thoughts of _before_.

“Why are you doing this?”

The words had surfaced to the top instantly, leaving his lips before he could reel them back in.

“Doing what?”

“This.” May as well commit. “ _All_ this shit. This isn’t—I’m not crystal clear on everything, not yet, but. It’s not like we—I mean, it’s not like I _died_ on good terms with you.”

Declan looked down at him. It dawned on Tillman, as he crept closer and closer to lucidity, that he must look incredibly stupid right now, all but naked and covered in—whatever all that was. Staring up at his ex-boyfriend-turned-kind-of-savior from his bathroom floor.

“You don’t have to. It’s not your job, or anything. We’re not—you don’t owe me anything.”

They knelt next to him, filling a plastic cup with water from the tub as they did so. “I’m not doing this because I owe you. You—I found you in a graveyard covered in third-, maybe even fourth-degree burns, acting like life was just peachy. You kicked back in my car like you weren’t half-dead, pretending there was nothing—” They dropped their shoulders. “This is where you’re drawing the line? Legit? _This_ is the weird part, for you?”

“I wasn’t really, uh.” Tillman closed his eyes. “I don’t know how much of me was in there. Earlier. Real empty husk moments.”

“Is it okay if I—?”

“Go ahead.”

Warm water poured over his hairline, sloshing back into the tub. “I’m doing this because. Well, I’m not actually that sure.”

Another cup of water. This time, he could feel the rivulets as they poured down the sides of his head. As the crawling, itching feeling in his skin began to ebb, every other sensation swelled. Each bead of water felt like an attack.

“You needed help. I was—honestly? I was there.”

“So were other people.”

“I was the only one there who knew how to help.” Cut off the end was an unspoken _you._ Knew how to help you, you difficult bastard, in a way you’d accept. “You’re—the stuff between us, before, I don’t really care. You needed someone who knew how to act around you. And I was already…”

Fingers tugged their way through his hair with the next cup, pulling at his scalp. It was almost too much. Too much to adjust to so fast. Everything felt too fresh, too present, setting all his senses on high alert.

“Are you gonna be okay if I use some shampoo? It doesn’t look like there’s any damage left around there, so don’t worry about that. I want to make sure, though. On account of you look a little. Uh.”

“What do I look like, Suzanne? Go on, tell me.” He opened his eyes, only to be faced with the most focused expression he’d ever seen on Declan’s face, all the uncertainty gone from him.

“Hell. You look like hell.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

“I can recognize shock, Tilly, because I’m a firefighter and that’s my job. Which is why I let you hang onto my shirt for dear life when whatever horror movie shit was happening back there happened. And I can recognize sensory overload, because I’m me, and you look like if I touch you one more time you’re going to break.” He politely looked away after that, but kept talking all the same. “I can get you some clothes. I know you don’t like it when I’m around for this kind of thing, but I’m not going to leave you alone. I still don’t know why or how any of this happened, and I don’t want you to feel like I’m babying y—”

“It’s fine. I get it.” He sat up, wincing as his now-wet hair touched the back of his neck, as the water dripped off it onto his shoulders. “I—clothes would be nice. Kinda fuckin’ cold in here. As to the rest of it, I think—I mean, Jaylen didn’t look this good for some two years after she came back. I think this is it.”

“You sure?”

“I’ll be okay.” Tillman put as much confidence behind the words as he could. More than he really had. As much as Declan had given him, when they’d answered the question that hadn’t been asked. That he couldn’t ask, couldn’t yank out of his own throat.

“You’re not going to get me to leave, you know.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“What, lost some of your legendary pride in the Great Beyond, or something?”

“Or something.” 

-

When Declan walked out of the bathroom, he cringed at how he’d left his bed. The blankets were wrinkled, out of place. He didn’t let that happen. That was the line between a clean room and a dirty one, growing up in the household he did.

He’d have to fix it later. The closet was in similar disarray, but that was more or less intentional. He dug into the pile of clothes he preferred to think about as little as possible (far left corner of the closet, under the newspaper clippings he’s been meaning to frame) and found a sweatshirt he’d bought during the Chiclawgo series.

It had been a joke, then. It went like: Declan Suzanne? Damn, they might as well buy themself Crabs merch with how shit they’ve been playing. At least then people would know where their loyalties lie. 

It didn’t feel that funny anymore.

A lot can change in two seasons.

Between that and a pair of sweatpants from Maggie’s college years that they’d repossessed after she graduated, they were theoretically ready to walk back into the bathroom. In practice, their heart was pounding in their chest. Nothing about today had stuck to the script. Not even in the way you could shrug off, no “that’s blaseball for ya!” and heading home for the night. 

He let out a breath through his nose. Since when was there a script for this, anyway?

The bathroom door creaked a little as he opened it. Tillman jumped, his hands snapping up as though about to cover his face.

“Hey. Just me.” They set the clothes on the toilet lid. “Got you something to wear. I’ll let you change?”

“Sure. Uh.”

“I’ll wait outside the door. If you need me, I don’t know. Scream, I guess?”

“Sure.”

He closed the door behind him, letting out a sigh. Listened for a thud or swear that never came. As far as he could tell, Tillman was—well, obviously not fine. Wasn’t currently braining himself on the sink tap, maybe.

“Suzanne?”

There it was.

“Be right th—” Declan began, cut off before they could turn halfway around by Tillman shoving the door open. Directly into them.

“Oh, shit.”

“Hey! Hey.” They caught him under the armpits as he started to fold, narrowly avoiding complete collapse. “Why are you standing up?”

“Pants,” Tillman wheezed.

“Dipshit doesn’t even know how to put on pants sitting down,” they muttered. They shifted so they could support his weight with one arm. “Let’s get you somewhere approaching bed.”

It wasn’t as difficult as Declan had feared. Tillman didn’t fight them as they helped him into the nest of blankets and leaned him back, gentle as anything, until he could relax against the pillows. They withdrew their hands as quickly as they could without looking too stupid. Too scared. Too weird, too desperate, too _freaked out_ to do anything but sit on the edge of the bed and stare out the window into the busy, half-lit city. 

Their attention wandered (because it always wandered) to Tillman’s breathing as it evened out. There were moments, in the intervening silence, where Declan was certain he was about to speak. A few short sighs. A car would honk outside, and he’d freeze for just a moment too long.

“You don’t want me t—”

“Are we gonna keep doing this?”

Declan took a sharp breath in. Didn’t look over at Tillman, much as he wanted to. “Doing what?”

“This. I don’t know.” A beat, then: “Knowing each other, I guess. Being there.”

“You’re asking me—you’re asking like I get to know that.”

“I’m not—” Tillman cut himself off. His breath shuddered in his chest, loud enough for Declan to hear. They knew that sound, that smoke-addled wheeze that haunts the kinds of people Declan meets once and never speaks to again except at potlucks and fundraisers, if they’re lucky. They didn’t want Tillman to be the one making it. “I’m asking if you’re staying, Suzanne. For real, I mean.”

“I already said you’re not gonna get rid of me. What? You don’t trust me, or?”

“No. Shit. Come on, work with me here. I want to know if this is—” That same rattling breath. “I’m not some Victorian lady with consumption from a short story you read in high school and get nightmares about for the next couple years, or whatever. I don’t need a babysitter. Just. Is this—am I seriously what you’re looking for? Cause I’m not really convinced it is.”

“I get the feeling you don’t want me to debate you on the consumption thing.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck _you._ ” Declan twisted the cuffs of his jacket under his fingertips, ignoring the growing tightness in his chest. “You mean, like, am I gonna stick around once you’re all good again?”

“Asshole, you _know_ what I’m asking.”

Except they didn’t. Except, coming from Tillman, they didn’t know shit anymore. They knew how to handle him, sure, how to avoid all his soft spots, all his exposed nerves—and all the outbursts that came with. But they weren’t sure if this question was the one they wanted him to be asking.

“I dunno. I’m gonna call my sister in the morning and see if she can come take a look, at least.”

“You dumb piece of shit.”

“I don’t know! What do you want from me, man?” They stared into the streetlight outside hard enough to make their eyes burn. “Just ask. Ask your stupid question and get it over with and go to bed.”

“Is it—are we just gonna go back to whatever we were doing before?”

“What, like making out in the back of my car?”

“Like pretending we don’t give a shit!” 

Tillman’s breath was the loudest thing in the room.

“You kind of unloaded a lot on me back there. And then you did your whole firefighter thing, and I don’t know how much of that is—I don’t know. Like, am I supposed to wake up tomorrow and pretend none of this happened?”

“You heard all that.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

No, scratch that. Declan’s heartbeat was the loudest thing in the room. Had to be. He couldn’t focus on anything else.

“What’d the guy say?”

And just like that, they were back there. The streetlight was a man leaning against the door of a bar, cigarette in hand, smoke blurring out his face. The bed under him barely existed. They were floating, unmoored in the moment some random stranger, someone who didn’t see anything but a ballcap and a jersey, congratulated him for losing the one thing keeping them from sinking into mind-numbing, heart-stopping _boredom._

“Hey.” There was a weight on their shoulder. “You don’t gotta tell me.”

Declan reached up and grabbed Tillman’s hand, forgetting to be gentle. “You don’t want to know.”

“Hey, don’t wuss out on me. Come on.” Tillman squeezed his hand. It was weaker than usual. Declan didn’t want to think about that. There was more he wasn’t thinking about right now than there was anything _to_ think about: that one shitty night spent downtown after the game, the things he’d let slip earlier in the graveyard, the way his face was hot and damp and embarrassing him. 

“We had a pretty good thing going. Before.”

“Hell yeah we did.”

“It also kind of sucked.”

“Hell yeah it did.”

“I don’t want to—Christ, man, we’re gonna suck no matter what. Why not stick to our usual territory?”

“Dunno.” Tillman tugged, barely, on Declan’s hand. It wasn’t so much an invitation as a question.

They answered, leaning back onto the pillows next to him. Took care not to brush his shoulder, just in case. Opened their mouth to say something that didn’t come in time.

“I guess I’m just tired of the burning hot and fast thing, man. It’s not a good look on me.” Tillman gestured at his face, still half made up of pale-blue-but-healing scars and framed by hair that ended in burnt tangles. “Been there, done that, bought the tee shirt.”

“They sell those, actually,” Declan mumbled.

“Don’t tell me. You didn’t even buy one from me?”

“Hey, you were an unexpected guest.” They snorted. “Fucker. Always inviting yourself over.”

“You drove me here.”

“Sure, whatever.” Declan hesitated. With daylight leaching out of his room little by little, it was all starting to feel too familiar. The ghosts of all the times he and Tillman had stumbled through that door were fading into view, tracing their way across the floor he’d cleaned a million times since and messing up the bedsheets that he used to keep folded tight to the mattress, hospital corners and all. He thought he’d never have to face those particular ghosts again. Thought that comfortable pattern, that routine intimacy, would never be something they wanted to shatter in their bare hands like every other reminder that their life was just the same day over and over and over again until whatever fiery death awaited them finally came. Except it wouldn’t, for Declan, because blaseball didn’t know the word _mercy_.

“So are you gonna answer my question, or what?”

“What?”

Tillman made like he was going to prop himself up on the elbows, but thought better of it halfway through. In the end, all it did was leave their joined hands propped up in the air between them. “Am I gonna have to put up with the same shit I did before, or are we actually gonna start putting effort into our…”

Declan scoffed, but his heart wasn’t in it. “You know I’m not gonna put _effort_ into shit. Kind of my whole schtick, man.”

“You get me, though.”

“Yeah. I mean,” he said, “I don’t know if I know how. To, like, give a shit all the time.”

“Doesn’t have to be all the time.” Tillman twisted his face into a mask of cartoonish disgust. “If you gave a shit all the time, I wouldn’t survive the fuckin’ week, man. I just don’t want to keep…”

“Keeping each other out of our heads?”

“Yeah.” So slowly they could barely feel it, Tillman laid his head on the soft part of Declan’s shoulder, that short stretch below the bone that stays pale under your shirt in the summertime. “I don’t think I like being out of my head.”

“Me neither.” Declan pulled one of the blankets up and over both of them. He closed his fist around the slightly-too-soft gray fabric, putting all his tension into the tendons of his hand before letting go. “So we’ll take it slow, I guess.”

“Yeah. Guess so.”

“Hey, Tillman?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t get to die on me again.”

He sighed, breath hot and humid on Declan’s arm. “Couldn’t pay me to try.”

-

“Hey, Suzanne.”

Beat.

“So. Feeling better this morning. And now I’m lying here hoping my drama queen shit yesterday hasn’t made you never want to speak to me again.”

Beat.

“I don’t know if I’m ever gonna live that down.”

Beat.

“I don’t know if I want to?”

Declan’s heartbeat was slow and steady against Tillman’s chest, the only certain sign he had that they weren’t lying there eavesdropping like a cowardly bitch. He shifted slightly, tugging the thin blanket they’d stolen in the night back over his shoulders. Tried to get comfortable.

When he spoke again, it was in the lowest, softest voice he could muster. “I just want you to be there. If anything happens. I don’t know how it would’ve gone if you hadn’t been—Stu almost gets it, but that’s a pretty big almost, and she’s not a first responder, or anything, and I’m enjoying not having—you know. I can pull off a lot of struggle ‘fits, but full-body burn scarring is a rough one for anybody. And—”

Declan stirred against him.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“Morning, asshole.”

The light filtering in from outside was the same as it always was. But with the scent of smoke still thick in his lungs, with the sheets grating against raw skin, with Declan in his arms stretching and swearing under their breath—

Maybe it wasn’t too late for things to change.


End file.
